


Pick Up The Pieces

by Tyellas



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Cunnilingus, Established Relationship, F/M, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Kissing, Romance, Smut, Songfic, Vaginal Sex, Vanilla
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 08:05:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11596452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyellas/pseuds/Tyellas
Summary: One night, Capable sets aside the still-troubled Citadel for a lover’s arms.  A tribute piece forThe Length and Breadth of Fury Road, with Capable and Keno.





	Pick Up The Pieces

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Length and Breadth of Fury Road](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4031473) by [proprioception (sacrificethemtothesquid)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sacrificethemtothesquid/pseuds/proprioception). 



> A little tribute to one of our favorite _Mad Max_ fics with some love for one of the story's pairings: Capable and the OC War Boy, Keno. Thanks to the author of _The Length and Breadth of Fury Road_ , [proproception (sacrificethemtothesquid)](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sacrificethemtothesquid/profile) for permission. (Though squid might not have given it if I'd said it was going to have a songfic element!)

Waiting on a Citadel balcony, Capable shifted restlessly. Storm cleanup was going all right. The Dag had given birth at last, freeing Capable’s nights again. She’d made it through another day of trying to run a stronghold, when she was reminded, ten times a day, that she didn’t know how. Somehow, she wasn’t dead from exhaustion. Instead, she was too alive for her own good.

She felt her skin thirsty, her mouth empty. Her sisters’ chatter about Furiosa and Max, whether they were-or-weren’t-doing-it, hadn’t helped. She knew what she needed, and it wasn’t here. Yet.

Capable fussed with a kerosene lantern at her feet, then turned to the darkness outside, trying to get some night vision back. There were a few fires below, sparked by the Wretches.

What would it take, Capable wondered, for this place to be better for them all? She wasn’t even thinking of impossible Before-time better, simply a better Citadel. If Corpus had decided to live and help them, the pumps crisis wouldn’t have been half as bad. If they could talk to the Wretches without it always breaking down into a hungry squabble, they could help, too. If Gastown had minded their own business instead of putting the Citadel under siege, both sides could be prospering. If Max had stayed, stayed properly: if Furiosa was…less furious. Saner.

She heard women out in the hallway. Capable leaned back into a shadow and listened. They were Milking Mothers: Plenty, and Shiralee, and Des.

As usual, sharp, demanding Des was complaining. “I didn’t come up to the Citadel for this rust, that’s for sure.”

Shiralee said, bewildered, “What more’d yus come f’r, then? Got food, got water.”

“Got a bloody road war in the hallways!” Even Plenty joined in as they laughed. “Thought I’d catch a chrome fella’s eye, be a breeder good and proper. Feed me up a bit more, maybe even a Wife.”

Plenty clicked her tongue and said, “I was a Wife. Wasn’t all that, being _under_ the Immortan.” Capable envied the light way they laughed that off. Then, she almost jumped. Plenty’s voice was ringing out, deep and plangent – singing.

_Rulers make bad lovers…_

_You’d better put your kingdom up for sale, up for sale…_

Shiralee joined in on the next words, her voice rising in clear sweetness.

_Well, did she make you cry,_

_Make you break down,_

_Shatter your illusions of love?_

_And is it over now?_

_Do you know how_

_To pick up the pieces and go home?_

Their voices faded as they went. Capable leaned out to catch their last notes. The unexpected singing reminded her of Miss Giddy in the Vault, frustrated as her old, cracked voice recounted older songs. When Capable caught the thread of the nearly-lost music with her own voice and the Vault’s guitar, Miss Giddy’s face would soften, her eyes gleam with remembered history.  

The Immortan had loved it, too, when Capable sang. But her music had never touched Furiosa, that she could tell.

Capable sank back into the shadows. _Rulers make bad lovers._ She let that slide between her and her occasional yearning for Furiosa. The distance felt easier, tonight. Like breathing room.

A big hand seized Capable’s elbow. “Hey.”

Capable jerked away, only to gasp, “Keno! You scared me.”

 “Sorry, eh? Sorry.” Keno’s shoulders curled in, like he could make his strength smaller. “Been fixing all day upstairs. I was Wretched filthy. You said the Sisters teased you ‘bout wearing my chalk. So I scrubbed up and left it off.”

Capable gasped again. Keno was her friend, her lover, and, first and foremost, a War Boy. War Boys clung to the white chalk that showed they were on the path to Valhalla, told the Citadel who they were. But tonight, Keno had set it aside, for her. Now that he was in her circle of lantern light, she could see him – really see him. She’d always known his skin was darker than hers. Wherever the lantern warmed him, he was the rich color of that Before-time treasure called wood. The dramatic light and shadow carved out his features: his once-broken nose, high cheekbones, full mouth.

As Capable stared, his straight brows crumpled. Keno reached up to rub the chalk dust that clung to the whorls of one ear, self-conscious. “You mad?”

“No. No!” Capable flung herself against Keno, curling herself into him. “I can really touch you.” She stroked her hands up his back, reveling in the warm, solid goodness of him.

Capable bowed her head slightly, enough to let their mouths drift together. The familiarity of kissing drew a confident “Hmmph” from the depths of his chest. Tonight, Keno’s mouth didn’t have any cover of chalk to dry her own mouth out. She let herself be sensuously lost.

Some moments later, Keno had his back against the balcony’s wall, sheltered in its small niche. Capable whipped her right braid out of their faces to kiss along the unlumped side of his jaw. Tonight, he smelled good, too. It was hard to get enough. When she licked the edge of his ear, Keno’s hips jerked helplessly against her upper thigh. His breath, as he burrowed his own face against her neck and shoulder, was hot and heavy. She couldn’t stop herself, sending her hands coursing down his back, below his loose waist band. He was warmth and flesh and muscle all the way down.

Capable said what she hadn’t, so far. “Come to my room?”

Keno’s voice thickened as his body arced into hers. “Huh. Hmmm. I. Uh. Mmmm. You wanna?”

“Mmm-hmmm,” she breathed.

Keno swallowed. “Yuh.” Capable slid away to pick up her lantern. She had to reach back and take Keno by the hand for him to follow her.

Several corridors and two stairs later, they’d arrived. Capable hadn’t done much with the room that was hers. Somehow she was always pulled away by Cheedo wanting reassurance, or Toast wanting to talk herself into exhaustion, or falling asleep herself on a pillow pile in the Salon. But she did have it. As she set the lamp on its battered, low table, she caught Keno shaking his head in wonder at the double bed.

“Is it okay?”

He laughed, awkwardly. “Okay? Fuck! This was my bunk, I’d never get out.”

Capable laid her vest next to the lamp, glancing away from the bed. “It’s a lot. I’m not here much.”

“No, ‘s good. You’re full-life, like an Imperator. You’re…you’re…Fuck.” Keno trailed off. Capable was stripping herself to the waist.

Standing beside the lantern, Capable didn’t feel full-life. She felt skinny and irregular, her breasts small and high, her always-light layer of Vault plushness long gone. Her arms and face were freckled, still flecked with a few chicken-pox marks. Half to shelter herself, she undid her braids, shaking her hair loose. The layer of hair gave her back a silky tickle, made it easier to kick away her shoes and her sturdy lower garments.

When Capable looked through her curtain of hair, back to Keno, he was rapt, his clean-muscled chest rising and falling in the warm shadows. She smiled a little. “How about you?” she asked, softly.

“You’re so beautiful. A witch. A goddess. A breeder. I en’t worth it.” Keno shucked his clothes anyway, stumbling over a trouser leg, never taking his eyes off her.

The first thing Capable saw wasn’t his gearstick. It was a band of unscrubbed white around his lower waist, some lines streaking down. The last of his upper body’s chalk paint was marking him with the ghost of the Vault’s chastity belts.

Keno was so different from the Immortan that she’d been untouched by hard memory, until now. And when it came, it was a flame of anger. Capable understood, in a flash, what the Immortan had denied all those young men kept down as boys until their death. He’d cut his battle fodder off from life and love with that deathly, drying chalk. They’d been split off from honest human touch, like her and her Sisters. Keno was so young. That War Boy Nux had been, too. Neither had known what to say when they were touched. They’d both been like her, nervous and clumsy and alive and –

Was this what Furiosa saw when she looked at Citadel people, now? Why she kept getting angry, again and again?

Capable folded that thought to her heart, for later, and opened her arms to Keno.

“I’m not the one who’s beautiful. You are.” She reached down to his hand, lacing her pale fingers through Keno’s hard, repair-scarred ones, steadying him. “Every part of you.” _Even your lumps_ , she wanted to say, knowing it was too much. Wanted to cry, _We’re the same._ Saying, “Touch me…”

It was Keno’s turn to grab her, sending his hands up and down her back, burying his face in her hair. Capable felt his cock bounce to easy life against her thigh. But Keno was ignoring himself to run his hands up her ribcage. She shivered. His wide hands were so gentle, so reverent, his touch wiped the Immortan’s grip from her bones. She sighed as his hands settled on her breasts. They swayed together a long moment while she felt the nubs of her nipples, for the first time in her life, peak with sharp fire. She cupped her hands over his, pressing his palms to her, welcoming him.

That did it for Keno. With a groan, he dropped to press his face into her tits. Capable giggled, then yelped as she was thrown off-balance. She let the fall rock her onto the soft edge of the bed. Keno sank smoothly to kneel in front of her. “You can get up here! That’s hard!”

Showing off, Keno bounced on the balls of his heels, effortless in his strength. “Me, I’m tough. ’S like our bunks. Down here, I can do the thing for you.”

“What thing?” Capable’s thighs tightened, wary.

Keno leaned back, raising his hands. “En’t out to scare you again.  A good thing. What they say that road warrior does for the Boss.” When she relaxed an increment, Keno laid a hand above her bright tuft of pubes, right on her pale belly.

“For _Furiosa_? OH—” Capable got the shock of her life when Keno leaned down and kissed her between her thighs.

He mouthed and nuzzled and hummed against her flesh. Her heart cracked open as she realized he didn’t really know what to _do_ in there. And she wanted him to. Capable spread her thighs wider and slid her own hand down. “It’s nice _here_. Like when you use your hands. If you want. You—“ _don’t have to_ was cut off by her squeak as his pillowy mouth slid home. It was like his hands again, tentative, tender, so warm and gentle they left fear and memory undisturbed. A reminder that what Keno did best was fix things.

Delicious moments slid by. Keno’s even, soothing touches weren’t forcing her to come. He wasn’t trying to get himself off, either. This worship was a gift to her. She, herself, wasn’t putting on a show to force a jaded old man to life. This was real.

Against her, Keno was groaning, sending deep vibrations through her. He backed off, gasping, flushed even darker. Capable swayed towards him. Her ankle brushed his stiff cock. Again, he rocked back onto the balls of his feet, drawing in deep breaths. “Y’r too good. Hold on. Fuck. Fuck! FUCK!”

The Immortan had been a stickler for what he called “good language.” Having a War Boy at her feet cursing for want of her -  Capable’s mind shut down in fevered delight. She reached for Keno, eager to give him everything they’d both been denied. “Fuck me!”

Keno leapt for her, stabbing his gearstick too hard and too low at first. “I’ll move,” she gasped, spreading for him shamelessly, all fire and blood. He pulled her onto his cock, him still kneeling on the floor, her on the edge of the bed.

It was urgent for her, like it had never been before, craveable as the pulse of music. They rocked together and he spread her again and again, gentle enough that she felt each shift in it. When Keno began to weigh her down, she found herself freezing, against her will. “Sorry. Sorry,” he said, just like earlier, and levered his torso back up. Capable exhaled in relief. Before she could thank Keno, she felt him grip her waist, hard and desperate.

“Aw, fuck. Up here I can see.” And he slid into her cunt again.

The angle was ideal for her, too, stroking her perfectly again and again. She gripped his shoulders, her hair whipping her own back as she thrust to meet him. “Come inside me!” she cried. Suddenly, more than anything, she needed that.  

Keno dragged her hips almost off the bed, sealing himself to her, tight and close. His whole body shuddered. Capable tightened with bliss, joining him. "FUCK!"

She pulled him to her, locking arms and legs around him. Keno hauled himself up from kneeling, only disengaging enough to join her. For a long moment, they clung together, simply breathing, until the bed’s old springs complained. Keno gave it a bounce. “Sure it’s strong enough?”

“If we spread out, should be.”

Once Keno was beside her, Capable melted against his shoulder. “Let me rest a bit. Then we can do more.”

He settled back happily. “Chrome.”

One minute later, he was snoring.

Capable considered getting up, cleaning up. Unbidden, she found herself remembering the Dag’s adorable baby. Beneath her, Keno’s sleeping breath rose and fell, soothing as his loving touch. She decided to stay where she was, slowly pressing her thighs together.

She felt herself smiling again, light and naughty as the Milking Mothers’ laughter earlier. Maybe it was starting to be that better Citadel. Tonight’s stops and starts, flashes of anger and pain, had ended with this sweet, enduring glow. She found herself humming, a breath of music.

_And is it over now?_

_Do you know how_

_To pick up the pieces and go home?_

Did she know how?

Perhaps she did, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> When does this take place? Sometime around Chapter 108-115 of _Length and Breadth._  
>  L&B SPOILER BELOW  
> ..  
> ..  
> ..  
> ..  
> In one of the final chapters, Capable’s thinking back on how she conceived her own child with Keno: _She thinks it was just after Heirloom’s birth, when they saw each other so infrequently._ Maybe this was the night...maybe a night soon after.
> 
> The song is, of course, Fleetwood Mac's _Gold Dust Woman_.


End file.
